The Hayseeds blog, No. 214 for the week starting July 15, 2007.
July 1, 2007
Hayseeds No. 213
July 15, 2007
Hayseeds No. 214
July 22, 2007
Hayseeds No. 214
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The women behind the President Lyndon Johnson administration passed away yesterday. One of the most remarkable first ladies in recent history, her work on beautification and environmental causes will be remembered for a long time.
While her work was not as much about the health concerns caused by pollution or the impact pollution is having on our environment, she highlighted the psychological impacts of blight on our society. People don't want to live in an ugly America, they want beauty that pleases their senses. The psychological impacts of blight were not often quantified before Lady Bird, but now they are an important part of our conscience.
Some people undoubtedly link her to the Keep America Beautiful Campaign by many of the corporations of the time, which tried to campaign against the villains of litter in an increasingly consumeristic society of the 1960s. And indeed, both her and the corporations had concerns about the impact of litter but for vastly different reasons.
That's what the Star-Gazette is noting with 15,000 bills introduced last year, and less then 5% of them passing.
They mention several high ranking legislators, but fail to mention my old boss, Assemblyman Morelle. He introduced 194 bills in the 2007 session, with about 3 or 4 of them being chaptered.
Then again, I don't see why this is a bad thing. Everybody knows what bills are important, and which ones are fluff. Introducing lots of bills gives people a wide selection of ideas to choose for and to debate. There would be a lot of good ideas that would never even see the light of day if Albany were to set a firm limit to new bills being introduced.
It looks like the residents of the Adirondack Park will be eligible under a new state program to receive up to a million dollars, to promote smart growth within the park.
The idea is promote development within the park that is consistent with existing uses. That will not be easy, in part because hamlets are limited in size and often surrounded by constitutionally protected state lands. That said, there is a lot that can be done to revitalize existing towns and promote better growth within the restrictions of the park.
Most of the growth in the park has to come on main streets. There is nothing wrong with that, except that it requires a rethinking of how towns grow. There needs to be more apartments and more shops in existing buildings, and new ones need to be built to accommodate growth—even if it means demolishing existing structures.
It has long been felt that the Adirondack Park is different, a bit sacred. Simply said, not all the big box development is appropriate there, except for some limited cases such as possibly in Ti and other large hamlets.
Apparently the folks over at the liquor authority where less then happy to find out that the Rensselaer Firehouse was doing what most firehouses do in their rec-rooms by selling alcohol without a license.
So what's the big deal? Clearly firehouses are not public drinking establishments, and the sale of beer is just incidental—they use it to pay for the cost of alcohol. Most firehouses have done it for years, as it's a form of socialization for firefighters.
There needs to be a social atmosphere to attract and retain quality firefighters. What's better then a mini-bar with cheap boos to keep people together? Firefighters as a whole know the danger of drunk driving first hand, so they are far less likely to engage in dangerous behavior like that.
The state law says that the counties by now are supposed to have replaced their machines, but it looks like at least for now there are no machines that reach state standards, with Microsoft, in particular, refusing to release their source code into state escrow for inspection.
I don't understand why the state can't simply use voting machines that use an open source operating system like Linux on it. This server uses linux, as does my laptop. It's a stable and robust operating system, that costs it's users absolutely nothing. Not to mention it's open source.
And with companies like IBM making Linux terminals and the alike, why can't there just be totally open code that runs on top of it, powered by software written by the state of New York. I'm sure the state has many talented programmers who could create code more then sufficent for voting.
I am very disappointed with the county committee with choosing an out of county venue for their picnic, particularly when there are many local venues that could be hosting them—even if Altamont Fairgrounds was too expensive.
Whatever happen to loyalty to local democrats? At any rate, Ed Kosieur needs my help more then some picnicking democrats, and the Young Democrats aren't going to have a booth this year.
